14 January, 2006

Senator, I propose we take a vote regarding lunchtime arrangements

I watched some of the Alito hearings this afternoon. Seriously the most boring thing you can imagine. Dude should get confirmed if he can decipher what the hell those crones are rambling about. Seriously, Arlen Specter (at left with Patrick Leahy) could talk to a concrete wall about nothing until it finally broke down and was like "fuck this" and crumbled on its own. I'm not sure who, exactly, he was talking to this afternoon because there was nobody else sitting at the table besides Leahy, and he wasn't looking at the crowd that had gathered under the auspices that something important was happening. It wasn't. NPR did a fine job cutting through the nonsense with their Audio Highlights, but I couldn't take the live coverage so I quickly found much more interesting programming through an On-Demand show about the Roman coliseum. I mean, they flooded the damn thing with water, that's awesome. In other news there's a fake Google profile of Alito hanging around still that's mildly amusing.

Good news: pitchers and catchers report in a little over a month. This makes me happy, because it means that my favorite first base coach, Lynn Jones of the Red Sox, will be back at his post again, stroking his now-legendary moustache and dispensing what I can only imagine to be sage advice on life skills and the proper pitch count on which to run. They need to get that dude a 10-gallon hat with the logo, not that awkward cap.

I'm going to call the playoffs right now, so why bother with the season? On the AL side, I'll take the Red Sox, White Sox, Oakland with the Tigers as a Wild Card bid. In the NL, I'll go with the Braves (sorry Minaya), Astros and Diamondbacks, with the Reds taking the Wild Card. Don't take those to the bank, just my ill-informed guesses based on nothing, really.

I am really looking forward to classes starting up again, since I've often found myself lacking productive things to do this week. I have been writing a bit, even made an appearance at the CP offices the other day, but I still am stuck with that malaise that comes with too much time off. Two Lit. classes and a writing class should make me pine for the halcyon days of break though, so I suppose I should be thankful.

My car sounds like a diesel truck, so I'm trying to drive it as little as possible until I can get it checked out. It was recently looked at, but it sounds poor again, which I'm always skeptical about, what with the proximity to the engine being 'tuned.' Oh well, it's a rather worn in (269,700 miles on it) vehicle which I nicknamed 'the tank' some years back for it's seeming reluctance to quit. I just hope it doesn't go up anytime soon.

Cingular sends me two bills every month; one for the regular amount, and one for like $5. They're idiots.

If you haven't checked out Frank Visco's awesome facial hair, I encourage you to do so over at Facebook. I also encourage you to make sure he maintains that facial hair for the duration of the year.